Review of Christ Hardwick's The Nerdist Way

Chris Hardwick's The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) 
(New York: Berkeley Books, 2011)

Chris Hardwick is a very busy man.  He hosts AMC's Talking Dead and G4's Web Soup. He performs stand-up regularly, and has appeared on John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show and The Benson Interruption on Comedy Central.  Around four years ago, Hardwick started a small blog called Nerdist that has expanded into the Nerdist website and the Nerdist network of podcasts.  With co-hosts Jonah Ray and Matt Mira, Hardwick hosts the extremely popular Nerdist podcast which was adapted into a TV show that airs on BBC America.  Hardwick has a strong fan following most of whom fit into the intended audience of his first book, The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (in Real Life).  And when someone like Hardwick sets out to write a self-help book for Nerds, there is a healthy air of authority hanging about the project.

The book is partially inspired by Hardwick's own life as a Nerd, including stories of his own struggles with anxiety, confidence, alcohol, his weight, and other setbacks and of his eventual successes.  Hardwick defines a Nerd as an individual who is obsessive, apt to over-analysis and hyper-self-awareness.  According to Hardwick, Nerds often suffer from high anxiety and low confidence and are hampered by a pattern of self-defeating thoughts and behavior.  Hardwick writes, "Nerds slouch, they won't look you in the eye, they stare at the floor mostly, and they seem to be on a mission to wrap their entire bodies around the center of their chest" (110).  Hardwick identifies a lack of confidence and excessive use of electronic devices as the reasons for these tendencies among Nerds.  The thesis of The Nerdist Way is that Nerds must employ their talents and intelligence in some field about which they are passionate.  The book aims to motivate Nerds to develop themselves into Nerdists: artful Nerds; “creative obsessives” driven to produce, to create, and to innovate.

The market is flooded with self-help books aimed at all manner of people.  Hardwick finds a way to make these principles relevant to Nerds and that could make his attempt at writing a self-help book for Nerds actually work.  Hardwick knows how his audience thinks and he knows that they respond to certain styles of communication and relate to a particular set of references.  Hardwick's writing style resembles that employed by bloggers and micro-bloggers across the net, a style that is very familiar and appropriate to his target audience.  In the chapter “RPG Your Life,” Hardwick encourages his reader to  make a character page (like in Dungeons & Dragons) that represents himself or herself, taking inventory of his/her talents and outlook on life.  By relating self-improvement to the sense of accomplishment that role-playing gamers feel gathering experience points and skills in a quest-driven, goal-oriented game structure, Hardwick finds an opening to teach Nerds the ways to mental, physical, and financial well-being, as well as to provide advice on time-management.  And Hardwick does not do this in vague terms.  Within The Nerdist Way, one will find methods for lowering anxiety, exercise programs, healthy diet plans, financial advice, and more.

Interestingly, the portion on physical fitness is the book's tensest moment.  Hardwick approaches the subject of diet and exercise acknowledging that this is a subject with which many of his potential readers are uncomfortable.  The section—in fact, the whole book—stands or falls on Hardwick's ability to sustain his point that a healthy diet and exercise are critical to overall wellness while not alienating his readers.  It would be impossible for me to say just how successful he is at walking that line, as each reader will react in his or her own way.  For most readers, I imagine that Hardwick's experience overcoming a weight and inactivity problem, his generally positive attitude, and his humor, serve to break down some of the barriers that so many of us have put up to preserve our self-esteem.

Hardwick's use of humor also helps to overcome the cynical and detached attitude that many of us who have come into adulthood in the past twenty or so years have espoused.  Hardwick circumvents some pretty large obstacles to package a self-help program in a way that will reach a portion of his target audience.  The book is rife with sarcastic and self-deprecating humor that serves to keep his serious message from seeming artificial and recontextualizes the book's principles of self-discipline and hard work in a Nerdy light.  Still, Hardwick maintains a positive tone throughout the book.

In some sense, Hardwick is merely reproducing principles that have been hawked by self-help gurus for decades.  Additionally, he has no credentials as a therapist or counsellor, only the authority of a now-successful Nerd looking back on his own journey.  Aside from his own experience with anxiety and self-doubt, Hardwick's treatment of setting goals and reaching them is unlikely to work on someone suffering from an anxiety disorder caused by a chemical imbalance or deep psychological trauma.  Nevertheless, Hardwick has a desire to help, the insight to reach his audience, and he is an important voice in Nerd culture, spreading an affirmative message and I applaud him for it.

[The word Nerd and its variants are capitalized throughout to stay consistent with Hardwick.]